MDM model format

(urgrund) #1

hey, i saw this new format with ET… MDM

What are the features/benefits of using this model format?
And what exactly is it? Will custom made exporters be needed by 3rd party teams (mods) to make media for ET?

(pants) #2

obviously i’m not 100% certain and i’d love corrections, but this is my understanding of it…

the .mdm file is a mesh (i’m presuming like an .md3 only it contains weighting information)
the .mdx animation file is applied to the .mdm to make it move and be sexy.

this way, there can be one set of animations that are globally applied to all the characters in the game. instead of having 2 .mds’s that are 2+ megs each, have the exact same animations, and that chomp up RAM, you have 2 very small .mdm’s that are controlled by 1 set of animations which isn’t so costly.

as i said, i’m by no means experienced with this, these are just assumptions i’m making. :slight_smile:

(Fluffy_gIMp) #3

Pants is pretty much bang on with his assumptions; MDM is a mesh format with no animation data stored only the bone weightings. While MDX is the bone animation data, so long as the MDM meshes have the same bone count then the MDX data can be shared over multiple mesh files.

The big saving as Pants rightly points out is memory as you don’t now need an MDS for ever new model.

As for a tools release we’ll have to wait and see, this new format isn’t currently in the RtCW code base.

(DJ_Art) #4

Ueerm, correct. It’s not in the vanilla RtCW code base, but it is inside the RtCW:ET code base :>

I hope you guys know that everyone in the RtCW/RtCW:ET world is expecting (or waiting or hoping, if you prefer) from you to release a SDK and game code pack. (and perhaps more documentation on formats than the previous time with the vanilla RtCW sdk).

And of course this discussion is being made because one of the biggest problems of RtCW modders is/was the .mds animation format :wink: And we hope to see better days :>

The Great Crusade coder,